Today’s cold hurts. No matter how much I brace myself or how often I check the sub-zero temperatures, I am ill-prepared for the biting wind that whips my cheeks and stings my eyes. On my drive to work, I sit on my hands to avoid having my skin touch the steering wheel. My breath makes fog even within the walls of my car.

And yet– in spite of this– (maybe because of this?), I think to myself: There will be life again– life again, even here . On that patch of ice there will be daffodils, on that crest of fallen snow there will be roses. The dull moan of the wind will be replaced with the songs of robins, and the brittle winter air will be renewed with the fresh breath of spring. The very same land– the very same atmosphere– holds both life and death.

What would it mean to see the whole picture? To stand apart from time, and recognize the roses within the snow, the spring within the winter? For eternity would suggest there is no “has been” and there is no “to come” but there is only the eternal now. A winter that holds spring; death that holds life.

In the first chapter of John, I read how “the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” The story tells me how “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” The world had (has?) the beginning and the end- the Alpha and the Omega– but we do not see him. Or maybe we see him, but we don’t know who he is. But he is here.

The Light is here.

May we see eternally— that is– may we see what is actually in front of us.

Winter’s all-consuming gales hold within them the replenishing life of Spring.
What will we choose to breathe?